Jennifer Aniston Shames Tabloids in Blistering Essay

She's sick of their warped view of womanhood
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 13, 2016 4:04 AM CDT
Updated Jul 13, 2016 5:32 AM CDT
Jennifer Aniston Shames Tabloids in Blistering Post
Jennifer Aniston arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Mother's Day" earlier this year.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Jennifer Aniston wants to put something on the record: She is not pregnant, and she's fed up with the tabloid media, its practices, and the cultural standards they represent. In a blistering Huffington Post blog post, the star says she is "fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of 'journalism,' the 'First Amendment,' and 'celebrity news.'" Aniston, who married Justin Theroux last year, says they're harassed daily "by dozens of aggressive photographers staked outside our home who will go to shocking lengths to obtain any kind of photo." She says recent coverage, which has included yet more false claims that she is pregnant, "has illuminated for me how much we define a woman's value based on her marital and maternal status."

"The way I am portrayed by the media is simply a reflection of how we see and portray women in general, measured against some warped standard of beauty," Aniston writes. She says the intense coverage of whether or not she is pregnant perpetuates the "notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they're not married with children." Aniston says she resents "being made to feel 'less than' because my body is changing and/or I had a burger for lunch and was photographed from a weird angle and therefore deemed one of two things: 'pregnant' or 'fat.'" She says it's painful and awkward to be congratulated, sometimes dozens of times a day, on a fictional pregnancy. She says if she does become pregnant, she'll be the first to let the world know. She concludes that the tabloids aren't going to change, but we can all change how we react to the "toxic messages" in their "seemingly harmless" stories. Read the full column, which a source tells CNNMoney was published exactly as Aniston submitted it, including her headline: "For the Record." (One columnist wants to know why we're still calling Aniston the world's most beautiful woman.)

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